


Dreaming is boring

by tomoewantsdolls



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dreams, Gen, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post Reichenbach, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 09:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomoewantsdolls/pseuds/tomoewantsdolls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall Sherlock can't help but dream.</p><p>Small scenes from Sherlock POV in his time alone after feigning his own death, trying to get down the rests of Moriarty's organisation</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I 'm sorry I don't have a beta (though I know I need one), so please, feel free to point the mistakes, specially those that scratch your eyes and kick your grammar sense.

It’s been three days, two hours and forty-something minutes since his fall from St Bart’s roof.

His impossibility to recall the exact minute is worrisome and a perfect indicative of his state of mind. It’s been almost five days since the last time he slept properly; it’s not he can’t sleep, it’s just he doesn’t want to. He’s in a foreign place, alien, but disturbingly familiar: he just can’t help but notice the similitude with THE flat, their flat, from the pattern in the wood to the absurd quantity of chairs per square foot.

Sherlock stands up and paces in the tiny room, feeling like a trapped mouse. His joints ache, and he’s grateful nobody can see him so dishevelled and distressed. It’s a perk of being alone: no need for self-control; more so if you need the remaining energy to focus in more significant tasks.

A soft tap in the door and the sound of paper sliding under it catches his attention. Two long strides are more than enough for him to pick the small envelope from where it landed. He opens it in a fluid movement of his fingers. The handwriting is recognizable, even in the concise message: “Field cleared. Targets located.”

Sherlock frowns at the word choice: “Located”, not “under control”. They know where the snipers are, but they haven’t caught them. He makes a mental note: he’ll make his brother regret his people’s incompetence the next time they see each other face to face. This deserves an apocalyptic brawl.

They are safe for now, though, if the first part of the message is worth of taking it seriously. He lets himself fall to the bed, noticing his pulse eases a bit. It’s enough for the tiredness to overcome him and let the sleep keep him dead to the world for what could be a few hours. But he dreams, so he awakes far too soon.

~~~~º~~~~

_Mycroft is right in front of me, talking, nonsense apparently (no novelty there): he opens and closes his big mouth but he just makes noise, like a trumpet. I look around but he keeps blocking my view, he doesn’t let me see what’s behind him. I want to shout at him but he dissolves to the ground. Git, he must let me insult him properly._

_The puddle at my feet looks deeper than it should. I kneel, to take a proper look. It’s like an abyss._

_A soft noise came within it, making the surface tremble. It’s a voice. I try to make no noise at all to comprehend what it’s saying. It’s no use; I need to be nearer, I grip to the border of the puddle that used to be my brother only that it’s no longer a puddle either, it’s a hole on the ground, open to the black abyss. I notice my body weight it’s precariously balanced in the border but I get to hear the voice more clearly: It’s John’s voice, unmistakeable._

_I identify the feeling of a rush of panic: my hand has slipped form the border, I’m falling, again._

~~~~º~~~~

He wakes, sweating.


	2. Chapter 2

"How it’s that even possible!?” Sherlock clenches the phone making the cheap device creak. He lowers his voice; the walls of the small room are only slightly thicker than a paper. “Your people are useless, and you are…”

“Careful, Sherlock. My patience is thin”, says Mycroft through clenched teeth. But he says no more for a while, an unpleasant feeling of guilt tingling in his conscience. “We know they have left the country, and we are sure…”

“You have lost them, how can you be sure of anything at all?”

“We have lost track of one. We know where the other two are. They are being careful in their movements, disappearing temporarily, and they are having… help.”

Sherlock inhales deeply, he was dreading this. Before he can talk, Mycroft voices his thoughts.

“You might think that once overthrown the king, everything would fall apart. Perhaps there would be a bitter struggle for power and the enemy would wither and die, but no. Everything is working without him, it won’t last but…”

“I’ll make it fall”

“Sherlock, you…”

“Don’t. Just tell me where to start”

A rustling of papers by the receiver makes Sherlock snort, he knows his brother has memorizing all the details of the report that some, mostly useless, minions may have passed to him. No need to search through the file but to gain time, both know that is useless though. Sherlock can’t wait hiding somewhere for the house of cards to collapse, he’ll blow it, he’ll dynamite the hell out of it if necessary. He’ll make the world safer for everyone that matters. His mind diverts when Mycroft speaks again.

“Belgium, Bruges. This one will be there for a meeting on Thursday; we are working in the details, probably with one of Moriarty’s big men.” Mycroft sighs, “You really don’t have to do this, I have men on this.”

“They are incompetents and inefficient, I’m more than capable”, he says venomously at the phone, while typing with his free hand on a borrowed laptop.

“That’s not what I meant”

“I know what you meant, just send me the details” Says Sherlock, his patience disappearing quickly.

“I need to secure a line…”

“I’ll be at the Ter Reien, it’s inconspicuous… and suitable. To the attention of Mr. Drake”

“Oh, for fucking s-!”

Sherlock hangs up before he ends the phrase and throws the disposable phone to the bin. He picks it up again at the third message.

**Sherlock, please, be discreet**

**MH**

**You may want to know they will visit the cemetery today.**

**MH**

**No need to say I’ll be looking after them.**

**MH**

 

Later, in the silent night, Sherlock will fall asleep thinking about clenched fists and slumped shoulders. He’ll dream, but he won’t remember anything in the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any writting mistakes, I feel I really need a beta (someone interested?)

Sherlock arrives to Bruges on Sunday early afternoon (local time) after two hours and ten minutes of restless confinement in a train, roughly twenty minutes of waiting and one more hour in a less luxurious train.

He decides to walk all the way to the hotel, not wanting to be locked in another public transport. Additionally he’ll be able to learn about the city as much as he can.

He walks with a brisk pace, straining his long legs after sitting for too long. The streets are deserted until he reaches the main streets, full of tourists. Nobody pays much attention, he is only another visitor with a big backpack (actually almost empty), an itchy wool hat (wich will burn as soon as he dyes his hair) and a modern-retro-whatever pair of glasses, everything together makes him look ten years younger. It’s easy to blend with the mass, he considers, the entire bustle is really appropriate for an inconspicuous meeting, on plain sight, you are just another one.

He spends most of the time till evening in the hotel, making a mess on the bathroom and cursing whoever has said that dying your hair by yourself is easy. He would have preferred a wig, but long term it’s better this way. He’s not trying to pretend being another person; he’s trying not to be himself. He messes his new bright blond locks with disgust; if nothing else he has tried very hard to be his own self.

Everything cleaned up, glasses on, hat on the bin, he goes downstairs through the winding corridor to the reception hall, to check if there is something for him. Maybe it’s too soon, but he needs to be prepared before the meeting takes place.

A sudden wave of uncertainty runs through his body; can he count on his brother for this? It’s unsettling, actually, the level of dependence; he has not relied on him willfully since he was twelve. Sherlock has never doubt about Mycroft’s intelligence, of course, the intention behind his actions, that’s the tricky part. It always is with a Holmes, he acknowledges with a crooked smile.

There is a woman talking with the receptionist when he arrives: dark haired, small, with a big suitcase precisely the optimum size for a baby elephant to fit in and a couple of shop bags. Executive secretary looking at her nails and the phone she just has pocketed. She talks and talks about how she has come to the city in a rush for her free week without thinking much, and without booking a room. Dull. His mind wanders through his plans for the day in case there isn’t any news from his brother, but he keeps hearing the woman beg for an acomodation and then for a recommendation of other places nearby. “Really, why people can’t be more thoughtful?”, he rants internally, “It’s easy get information ahead, more so with her mobile and one would think that you need some organization skills to be a PA… Wait…”

The tiny woman is making her escape when he reacts. He’s going to run after her but he kicks something with his right foot, spilling its contents. It’s one of the woman’s shop bags, but his name is in one of the things that have come out of the bag. Well, not his real name, but the one he gave to Mycroft.

“Can I help you?” the girl at the counter looks at him with a trained neutral smile.

“Uhm, yes, can I have a map of the town?” better to act normal, better be cautious either the small woman is an enemy or an ally; but following her it’s tempting.

“Sure. Look, here we are” says the receptionist, circling the spot in the map where the hotel is. “And…”

“It’s ok”, Sherlock interrupts before she goes with the whole explanation for a tourist visit, “I can interpret a map” He cannot see the woman by the window anymore.

The receptionist's smile falters “Ok”

Sherlock looks at her frown. Too bad, maybe? He blinks; what would John say? “Thanks”, he tries to mimic one of John’s ‘charming’ smiles plus half lidded eyes “May I ask you for a late dinner recommendation?”

The girl’s face makes a funny thing and turns bright red, and she lowers her face looking at the map clearly avoiding his eyes. “Ah… I don’t… I really can’t give you, uhm, a direct recommendation but…” she darts her eyes at him for a millisecond and keeps wandering the pen above the map “this, this street is… there is a lot of good restaurants”.

“Thanks” he retrieves the map and flounders to his room, confused by the results of his trying-to-act-normal-as-John-do, angry for not being following the owner of the bag and intrigued by its contents. Said contents are distributed on the bed a minute later: a silk woman’s blouse the brand of the one impressed in the bag, a small laptop in a plain handbag with a typewritten tag reading Mr. Drake, a couple of maps of the city and a phone just like John’s one. He's fiddling with the keys when the phone rings.

“M” Surely not... He picks up the phone. “Yes?”

“Sherlock”

“Really, Mycroft? Why all this farce?”

“We need to be cautious” Sherlock scoffs. “This is serious, if you want to continue with this you have to follow my lead” he pauses but there is no reply “The meeting has been confirmed for tomorrow”

“I thought it was on Tuesday”

“Things are moving quickly, I'm afraid”

“Right. Where?”

“Walplein, 26. At noon. You will find useful information in a pen drive attached to the handbag”

“Haven't you learned already with those things?”

Mycroft ignores him and keep talking. “You will receive all the data we can gather till then. We have yet to confirm who will meet him. I might be repeating myself, but be careful, Sherlock”

Sherlock hangs before he can say anything else and immediately changes the name of the contact to “The Queen”. With a sigh he drops the phone and makes himself comfortable in the bed to start reviewing what Mycroft have for him. It's past 3 am when he drifts off.

 

~~~~º~~~~

_I'm barefoot. The carpet is soft and warm. This is Baker Street, I know it is, but is pitch black, I need to open the windows._

_The light blinds me. I should run away from the window, someone might see me and it's not safe, not yet. But I'm here and I need to keep everything in place, I need to bring John back, here is safe, no one knows I'm here._

_My room is virtually empty, I must bring my things back, with John, he will help, he will be eager to help. “John!” No one answer, but he should be here soon. Surely he's out shopping, we need milk, I need to start working in my cultures now, I'm not on schedule with the tests on Streptococcus mutans._

_There's noise upstairs. John is at home then. I rush to his room and the door opens before me. Everything is wet here, the walls are weeping, it seems. We need to fix this, Mrs Hudson is going to be angry._

_John is soaking too. His head is resting on his knees and I can't see his face. He's a doctor, he should know he cannot be this soggy without catching a cold._

“ _John” I shake him lightly but he embraces his legs more tightly. “John, please, we need to fix this”_

“ _You are not here”_

~~~~º~~~~

Sherlock wakes up with the sound of a new email received.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me a ridiculously long amount of time and has been embarrassingly difficult to reach the point I wanted. I sincerely hope not have messed too much with the verb tense.
> 
> Apologies

Sherlock peeks through the train’s window; half kneeling between two rows of seats, ignoring the glares an old lady was directing him from the other side of the wagon, he can see the blond man standing in the platform again after a, surely unsatisfactory, inspection on the other train. He can barely see him with this angle, but the pose is distinctive: military man.

The train suddenly moves, slow at first, leaving Bruges behind. He can finally exhale. The day started just fine, but now he’s running away with destination unknown, no suitable information to go further and with at least one of Moriarty’s men going after him. Terrific.

He seats with his legs outstretched and closes his eyes with the intention to reexamine the events that has lead him to this mess and figure out a plan.

 

Dawn surprised him reviewing the information Mycroft had sent him. Just four photographs, two of the sniper, two of possible henchmen that could attend the meeting. He dressed himself with a pair of well-worn jeans and a two sizes too big jumper. A casual jacket and the glasses from yesterday completed his attire.

He arrived twenty-four minutes early, trying to ignore the tingling in the pit of his stomach that he associates with chases or interesting cases.

 

Since that moment he is aware of a missing component on the equation, an important one which he refuses to name even in his head. The no name ban is pointless anyway; his brain keeps providing an image that makes the effort useless. His abrupt awakening has left him with an intact imprint in his memory of a soaked John, which leads him to the vision of an overly distress ex-army doctor, in front of a black tombstone, giving him a sense of uneasiness that makes him rub his temple every now and then.

He remembers thinking that morning that he wanted to end this as soon as possible, preferably today; probably his first mistake. He snorts at his naivety shaking his head as if expelling the unwanted thoughts by kinetic energy and recovers his original purpose.

 

The 26 on Walplein resulted on being a brewery, apparently the only one left in the city, and one that you can visit. He sat on a bench outside, making a good impression of a tourist studying a map while taking into account his surroundings. After seven minutes he went inside through an ample corridor to a patio with the brewery itself on the back. The place was a rat trap, with no other evident exits that the one he used to get in… or the roofs, now considered; this was his second mistake.

A couple of minutes later a large group of people emerged from the inside of the brewery, chatting amiably They were having a guided visit. Sherlock spotted her as part of the group, the mysterious woman at the hotel. Unlike the day before, he saw her face clearly and raised his eyebrows in recognition: he couldn’t associate the face with a name but with a case, his first case with John; she was with Mycroft that night. He frowned that morning in the brewery as he frowns now in the train. Why send her here? In retrospective is clear she has training on field missions, but anyway…

She clearly saw him frown and crossed the patio to reach him.

“Oh Francis, what a surprise!”. She kissed him in the cheeks, whispering a muted “my lead” with the second one. “Why don’t you get us some drinks? You have to tell me about you”. For a beat Sherlock hesitated, she gave him a meaningful look. Something was amiss, something wasn’t going as planned.

He headed inside, taking mental note of the people at the tables: two men in his twenties chatting amiably, one of them oblivious to the crush of his friend; a woman in her late forties, divorced, holding a book that she wasn’t really reading; a man alone, gym building, tapping in the table, impatient; a family of four, battling with an hyperactive child; a couple, not strictly speaking, she, younger, turned to her right taking pictures, he using his phone. Inside was the rest of the visit group, two of them not-so-inconspicuous undercover agents. He seriously needs to talk with Mycroft about his people’s incompetence. No sight of the men in the photographs.

His third error was not paying attention to the only one that wasn’t drinking.

 

“Stupid” he chastises himself.

“Sorry, sir?” Sherlock startles to find a man (the conductor, by his outfit) standing besides him.

“Oh, nothing, not that you are stupid. Well probably you are, but not the point.”

“Excuse me?”

Sherlock resumes his position but the man isn't moving, he's waiting, and he's getting annoyed.

“Hm? Oh, of course, well...” he looks behind the conductor to see the flashing panels with the destinations and reviews his options in the blink of an eye. “One ticket to Liege, please” He displays his best smile and the man seems both unsettled at it and relieved about leaving the wagon.

That sorted, Sherlock goes back to the problem in hand: he needs a plan; he surely should hide for a while, again.

“Stupid”. Repetition is needed for once. He shakes his head.

 

After he retrieved a couple of beers at the bar he saw the woman seating in the farthest table from the building, the nearest to the door entrance, facing the other tables. He sat at her right facing the door. The moment the sniper entered in the brewery two minutes after the hour and froze at the sight of the man everything went downhill.

 

He doubts Moriarty's men know who they are following, but he's sure the blond man suspects. Either way he can't be sure. Can he? And this is bad, really bad. He sends a message to Mycroft resisting the habit of signing it.

**Who is he?**

The phone rings immediately. He looks at the other occupant in the wagon, the old lady now sound asleep, and picks up with resignation.

“Who is following me? I know she sent you a picture”. The woman registered the change in the sniper too and took a picture over Sherlock's shoulder with her phone.

“We're on it”

“Let me guess: they suspected there's a leak on the organization, hence the change of day, and the sniper’s surprise, he didn't expect him, neither the incompetents you call 'your experts'. He's one of the top men, he can make decisions, he...” Sherlock visualizes the scene; the details clear in his head: when the sniper reached for his pocket everything moved quickly. The woman shouted at him. He sensed movement at his right and turned to look at the man he has ignored before, he was alone (the girl with the camera wasn't with him, she was seated in other table, with the divorced woman, probably her mother, both with their eyes open wide, now he acknowledges the resemblance).  Said man, blond, military demeanor, stood and at his signal a shot impacted in the sniper's chest. “... decides. He decides. He probably was the number two after Moriarty”

“Well spotted”

“But why the risk? Why exposing himself? And why killing his own man?”

It seems to Sherlock that his brother’s pause says more than the words that follow. “He was hired, Sherlock, a hired killer. He pays loyalty to the biggest cheque.”

“It was no longer his man. He was the leak” Sherlock states. “Once confirmed by the presence of your agents and... our behaviour...” the vision of two cold eyes fixed on his own crosses his mind “Mycroft, he saw me, he looked at me, I’m not sure if he recognised me but he followed me after we rushed outside... ”

“You knew this could happen.”

“Of course I did!” A snore from the old lady makes him lower his tone “It’s my responsibility, Mycroft, and I’ll fix it” He can’t believe what he’s going to say. He inhales deeply “But I can’t do it alone, I need help”

“Needless to say you have it, dear brother”

Sherlock doesn’t calm though, something akin to remorse creeps his nerves and makes him revisit the surge of panic when he saw the man behind him after turning the second corner in his scape.

“Look, I tried to keep track of him but he disappeared so I left the brewery. He must have run to the roof. He may not trust everyone in the organisation but he had help there, a marksman and another henchman at least. He found me immediately,” Sherlock says bitterly “and followed me. I lost him in the train station. If he suspects, if he recognises me...” Sherlock’s voice falters.

“We are on it already; I’m heading to pick up John, we’ll take him to a secure place”

“Good” A lump on his throat prevents him to speak further. “Keep me informed” He hangs up and rubs his eyes tightly with both hands. He’ll fix this, he’ll do it. Now he needs a plan and a new disguise.

He won’t sleep that night.

**Author's Note:**

> The brewery is an actual place in Bruges.
> 
> I think I should call it "Discussions with Mycroft" at this point... I'm not very pleased with this chapter, sorry. There will be more dreaming ahead


End file.
